Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

The return of the Wasp sloop of war was noticed in our last, and it appears that all hopes of accommodation with France, are extinguished, but upon two conditions.—Either that we must declare war against G. Britain, and resist the right of her vessels searching our merchant ships. The first is a plain proposition, and requires no comment: the other would in effect be the same, but deserves some notice. France assumes it as a right, which she has, to capture and condemn our vessels, provided they have been visited by, or in a more common phrase boarded from a British cruizer. It is presumed that France does not possess any belligerent right which does not belong to her enemy. A French cruizer cannot ascertain whether an American vessel has been visited by an English cruizer or not, without visiting the American ship, which act would produce the capture of the American ship, if she was afterwards visited or boarded from an English ship.—It is a subject that we cannot reason upon, it is ridiculous in its principle, and insulting in a high degree to the understanding of our government, inasmuch as it contains an indirect proposition to force us into war with her enemy, and upon a ground which would place us in the wrong.

The right of a belligerent to visit & search a neutral ship, is so well settled, that it appears needless to offer any argument to prove it their practice. We have long been persuaded that nothing will satisfy Napoleon, but a surrender of our independence, or going into a war, from which we can derive no advantage.

[Norfolk Ledger.]